Table of Contents
Health Science and Medicine
Introduction
Nurses act as an integral component of the medicine and health care team who coordinate with other healthcare staffs in meeting the needs of patients as well as improving the outcomes for the patient. The program equips nursing expertise which is beyond medical care, such as health promotion, patient education, community health, technology integration, and healthcare across the lifespan. Nurses can, therefore, participate in different areas where they offer patient care such as clinics, hospitals, homeless shelters, schools, and other agencies. It equips a nursing graduate with the best skills after learning the program where one can participate in different areas to offer the services. One of the key element taught in the program is the ability of the nurses to manage to utilize judgment skills and critical thinking while at work (Bucknall et al., 2013). Every practice done by a nurse should follow the evaluated best practices standards and concerning any evidence from research. The nurse should also show respect and unwavering compassion for human life. To engage in such career acts as a call to everyone in making a difference in every day.
Anonymity and Patient Confidentiality
Nursing students are usually taught the basic skills and concepts to usually use while providing nursing care to the patients who have different self-care deficits. Skills complexity increases as the student continue engaging in the program such as baccalaureate degree. Also the responsibilities for a student in nursing increases as the level of education increase. Students should be prepared to engage themselves in illness/health continuum through the partially compensatory, supportive-educative, and fully compensatory stage (van Houwelingen et al., 2016). Achieving patient self-care can be done through nursing care which helps in maintaining an optimal level of functioning. To protect patient information, the nurse should also utilize the skills gained in understanding each patients records and information is confidential.
Ethical and legal issues
The patient in a correctional setting is the core of any professional nursing practice. The patient state should not change the how the nurses practice their exercise. Correctional nursing helps the nurse to evaluate and recognize that every patient has intrinsic value. Achieving and exercising values in professional nursing in a correctional setting creates a different set of legal, ethical and professional situations for the nurse. The ethical concern of a nurse within traditional medical setting may be complicated as ethical decisions rarely occur. In the correctional setting, the nurse may experience ethical issues daily. Different ethical principles exist for a nurse within the correctional setting (van Houwelingen et al., 2016). First are self-determination and autonomy which symbolizes respect for people. Next is beneficence which refers to the conduct of doing well. Also, there is non-maleficence which is the ability to avoid harm. Another principle is justice which represents equitability, fairness, or truthfulness. There is also veracity which refers to the ability for someone telling the truth. The last principle is fidelity which equates to one being faithful to own commitment. The legal issues, on the other hand, are categorized by licensure, federal and state laws, public expectation and scope of practice that the nurse is expected to practice within high professional standards (van Houwelingen et al., 2016). Negligence to portray high professional standards leads to a conflict of interest. The conflict of interest may occur as actual, perceived or potential which may either lead or not to negative outcomes.
Caring
Caring is a way of developing internal behaviors that show genuine concern for other human beings about their well-being. Such behaviors include empathy, sensitivity, respect, and attentive listening. Means of exercising such behaviors are provided to students while in the classroom or at clinical experiences at any stage interaction created between the educator, patient, and student (Bucknall et al., 2013).
Teaching/learning process
Two distinctive components exist during the teaching/learning process. Most institutions in nursing provide various learning strategies which motivate the student’s efforts while learning or utilizing the learned skills. Skills obtained can be used in different patient care settings. Learning, therefore, can be referred as acquisition and utilization of skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Every student requires interactive and self-directed learning. The curriculum provides reasons for life-long learning (Bucknall et al., 2013). Implementing teaching/learning theory while taking the course is essential as it helps the students to have the necessary skills. Learning/teaching concepts vary from simple to complex which are applicable in activities such as one-to-one and small group activities, student clinical assignments. Discussion, multi-media, student presentations, lecture, and computer assignments.
Unique Individual
Biopsychosocial dimensions exist to most human beings. The dimensions occur due to spirituality or cultural diversity which affects the life cycle from the time of birth to death. Throughout the course, students will come across the range of these dimensions as they engage in teaching/learning process which they should utilize during student-patient contact. Another view shows the dimensions as factors that will help the patient exercise own care (Hutchinson et al., 2014).
Nursing Process
This process utilizes a problem-solving approach which is systematic to be used by nursing professionals to evaluate patient needs, develop plan care, engage in implementing care and check the perfection of nursing interventions. The process is dependent on the nursing program, and it includes creative and critical thinking by use of analysis, assessment, planning, evaluation, and implementation (Hutchinson et al., 2014).
On completion of teaching/ learning process, the graduates are required to show different competencies in dealing with patients. First is human flourishing which helps in promoting human integrity, dignity, self-determination and personal growth of oneself, patients, and people within the healthcare team. Baccalaureate degree requires one to implement skills and knowledge learned in clinical and didactic courses to help families, patients, and communities to progress as they achieve human capabilities continually (Bucknall et al., 2013). Another competence required is the nursing judgment which utilizes rational judgment while providing quality care, safety, and while making decisions that change the health of patients from a family context. Baccalaureate degree also needs students to use substantial evidence in making judgments based on nursing knowledge and science from other disciplines while providing health care support to patients. The nurse should portray professional identity through determining how own values and strengths affects personal identity and contributions of a nurse as one of the healthcare team. The degree also requires one to utilize spirit of inquiry as an evolving scholar who can participate in the development practice of the science of nursing through identifying required study questions, critiquing published research, and implementing available evidence as the basis to providing innovative, creative or solutions based on evidence to problems in clinical practice (Hutchinson et al., 2014).
Exams
The purpose of National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN exam) is to evaluate whether it is safe for an entry-level nurse to begin practice. The test is usually significantly different than any test taken while in nursing school. However, nursing school exams usually follow NCLEX style of questions. The questions in this exam cannot be viewed as knowledge-based exams rather than analysis and application which requires nursing knowledge. Nursing students will be required to utilize critical thinking skills while making nursing judgments.
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- Bucknall, T. K., Forbes, H., Phillips, N. M., Hewitt, N. A., Cooper, S., & Bogossian, F. (2016). An analysis of nursing students’ decision‐making in teams during simulations of acute patient deterioration. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(10), 2482-2494.
- van Houwelingen, C. T., Moerman, A. H., Ettema, R. G., Kort, H. S., & ten Cate, O. (2016). Competencies required for nursing telehealth activities: A Delphi-study. Nurse education today, 39, 50-62.
- Hutchinson, K. M., Shedlin, M. G., Gallo, B., Krainovich-Miller, B., & Fulmer, T. (2014). Ethics‐in‐the‐Round: A Guided Peer Approach for Addressing Ethical Issues Confronting Nursing Students. Nursing education perspectives, 35(1), 58-60.